Do You Give Zeros?
I was “raised” to believe that if a student did not complete an assignment the grade he/she earned was a 0, as in 0% or no credit. My view of assignments not completed or turned in is now different than what I was “raised” to believe. In the book “Fair isn’t Always Equal” by Rick Wormeli, the author reaffirms my belief that assignments should be given no lower than a 60 or 50% if its not completed or turned in, that an F- (50%) or D-(60%) is “punishment” enough. Giving the student a 0% does nothing more than assure the teacher that students are receiving proper “discipline” for not completing work. This makes the teacher feel good but does little for the student. This is fine if you are assessing behavior, but you should be assessing learning. Why?
If grades represent learning a 0% would be detrimental to the grade. Overall a 0% would not represent the learning that the student has achieved. The line between grading learning and behavior is blurry enough already. Let’s start demarcating that line.
If you too were “raised” to gives 0’s challenge yourself to try something new this year, even for just one trimester, semester, or quarter. If you feel compelled to give them a failing grade for not completing an assignment don’t go under a 50%.
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If a student earned a zero the teacher should give them that grade, in the future that student might think about the consequences and turn in their work. What ever happened to learning from mistakes?
Isn’t giving a zero the equivalent of docking an entire day’s pay for being a little late to work? Even if the student didn’t turn anything in they surely learned something. The only way I’d give a zero is if the student never showed up for class and never turned anything in. Before it would come to that, however, the student would most likely be withdrawn from the class.
Give ‘em what they earn. They don’t do the work? Zero. Nothing for nothing. If we give them a 50% for nothing what are we teaching them? We might as well teach them that grades don’t matter if we don’t give ‘em zeros when they earn them.
Sharing what I shared on FB – I disagree with zero’s as well. I get tht students should be accountable for work. However a content grade is about measuring standards, performance indicators etc. Assess effort and work completion elsewhere. Quite frankly kids often blow off work because the instruction is not motivating or engaging. Or they can’t do it. Eithe way some accontability for lack of work completion falls on the teacher a well. Zeros averaged into a grade for a few assignments not done can cause a kid to fail – I have a problem with that. True assessment if what the kid knows? And then way happens to a kids desire to stay in school? IMHO this is a contributing factor to high school drop out rates. And if a teacher stands and lectures, does nothing to engage or meet different learning styles then kids will blow it off. We can’t assume that because it came out of our mouth or we told a kid to read pages in a textbook that we have “taught” it or kids have learned it. We often disrespect who they are as learners… Regardless, a zero is not an accurate measure of what we say we measure with a grade. They are used as punishment and do not motivate kids to learn and isn’t that our job to do so?
I am going to start this right now! I have always hated that practice, it was just the only thing I knew. I always change the zeroes to the earned grade if/when a student does turn in the work, so this method actually aligns with how I’m thinking. The student only learns the material if they do the work, but too many zeroes makes it so there is no incentive to try any longer.
@ MA Public Schools: The analogy you use seems flawed to me. A student being a little late is more analogous to only doing 90% of the homework or not completing the last section of a quiz. Not doing homework, assignments projects or not taking assessments is more like actually missing work for the entire day, for which I think one would have their day’s pay docked.
@ All: I think the debate is rooted in philosophies. For me, practicing what is taught is an integral part of the learning process. Grades are to reflect what is learned, but the process is a part of learning. Also, there is an issue of equity in that child A can earn, let’s say a 72% by completing everything in the learning process, but struggle to earn that 72%. Child B can earn the same 72% yet skip some of the process. Rather than let child B, float along unmotivated or disinterested, he or she should have his or her instruction differentiated to meet specific needs, which in this case may mean an acceleration or addition of content. That student needs to learn and practice the process of learning for when he or she eventually comes up against something that actually does present significant challenge. Rather than fix how grades are assigned by starting at 50%, let’s focus on training ourselves to meet all needs of all students, different as they may be.
Making 50% a score for doing nothing is very Spinal Tap. As Nigel Tufnel said, “But these go to 11.”
This conversation is an ongoing one at my high school. RTI is in full-court press and we find ourselves asking fundamental questions…again. What does a grade represent? What is the meaning of assessment? How does student responsibility factor into the picture? Engagement is a two-way street. There are students who have perfected the act of disengagement by the time we get them in the ninth grade. I can’t agree that educators assume students necessarily learn something without demonstrating that knowledge in some measurable fashion. At the high school level, that is a huge leap of faith which usually results in a sprained ankle…or worse.
Zeros represent effort, mastery, AND accountability. If you don’t pay your electric bill, then you receive zero power. If you don’t show up at work, then you receive zero dollars. Assessment, I believe, is meant to demonstrate to the teacher and the student where a student’s mastery is at a certain point in time. That opens the door for remediation and enrichment. How can a teacher effectively construct the best possible learning process without both formative and summative assessments if the student does not participate in the process?
Blaming the teachers for lack of engagement, while it may ring true in some cases, is short-sighted. Many of us struggle at all levels to address the needs of our students while maintaining equity among our students. What is often missing is the student who values learning and is open to opportunities for engagement and growth. We are not the enemy. We wish for our graduates to be independent, productive citizens who are advocates for their own futures as well as their future families. Earning a zero sends a message to all interested parties that the train is derailing…either work together to get it back on track or it is going to end up lying by the side-rails unable to go anywhere.
Yes, the wisdom Rick Wormeli helped me to change my instructional practices about two years ago. Instead of using the traditional 100 point scale I switched to an even-distribution scale. In the process of changing over, I educated my students/and their parents on grading practices so they can become more literate. Bucking the status quo came at of cost of course but if I had to do this all over again, I would do it in a heartbeat. My grade book is no longer being used as a whip, my students appreciate that. Based on the above postings, it is obvious that some teachers do not understand how the distribution of grades on a traditional 100 point scale is not accurate.
Change is difficult, many of the parents have to be “educated” about these new views of assessment as well. Our students will adjust and adapt, but it’s the rigid thinking adults that will be the biggest obstacle regarding new practices.
Thank you all for the comments and showing the confidence to voice your thoughts/opinions.
My school is currently in the middle of this zero debate. It seems their philosophy is that we need to give the zero and that they can’t magically change into passing grades when various assignments are handed in late. The biggest problem is that all the teachers don’t follow our homework policy which then cause problems for administrators when you work in the private sector and certain kids can be weeded out due to their poor work performance.
I traditionally liked to give a student a 70 the first time they don’t hand it in, a 50 the second, and then a zero for subsequent missing assignments. I really feel this doesn’t hurt the students overall grade as bad and gives a better accessment of the overall academic profile of a student since the zero won’t tip the scales so harshly. (How many times as a teacher, do we always get things graded to hand back the next day?)
In the real world, even the bill collectors,car financers, and Mortage lenders work with you when you are late once or twice. If you pay late, you get a small fine. When you are in a parking lot, the longer your in, the more you have to pay. I believe in the same system with homework. Living in our fast paced world where kids are doing everything under the sun and are faced with so many obstacles in doing their work, I almost believe you have to be laissez faire when you are dealing with your average classroom.
I truly believe, that I would rather harp on my students to get their work handed in and give them a penalty then to have them not do the assignment at all. If I am doing a Homework to see where my kids are at on a particular topic… and a few don’t do it… then I don’t have the full picture of my students! So I will be on their cases until they do get it done. If a gentle push doesn’t get it done,if a second doesn’t work, then I would call the repo man, shut the electric off, or sign the foreclosure papers. Isn’t that how the real world works?
I guess somehow its the old 3 strikes your out, or in this case, on the third strike, you are getting what you deserve.
The problem is not the zeros, it’s the 60 point range of the F.Zeros would be a logical grade if we could use a 4,3,2,1,0 grading system. We use accept this with rubrics, why not use the same scoring system to apply to other grades?
Interesting discussion. I suppose I will join the throngs of educators who “don’t understand how the grade distribution on a 100-pt scale is inaccurate”…thank you higher-than-thou ’student advocate’.
If giving them a zero for not turning in work doesn’t truly assess learning, let’s make homework optional for these students and base their ‘learning’ on the true assessment, whether it be a stardardized test or end of chapter assessment. Isn’t that fair?
I agree that we (myself included) as educators need to take responsibility in addition to placing responsibility on our young adults as their minds, vaules, and habits form. My students have a job to do…and that involves regular classwork and homework. My responsibility is to keep contact with parents, especially if zeros start appearing.
Mathmatically assigning 50-60% for zeros doesn’t “add up.” It teaches our students that slacking off for 9 weeks then completing the bare minimum to pull a D- is good enough.
Teachers that teach the “old style” should be ashamed of themselves. The time is now to change old habits and start new. Giving a zero to someone just keeps them down and frustrates them more and more. Look to President Obama for inspiration, he is trying to change things despite the opposition. Keep fighting it!
As a teacher and mother of a high functioning autistic high school junior who is in the International Baccalaureate program (taking 5 AP classes this year), zeroes are devastating to an average and really bring feelings of self-deprecation and self-doubt about his abilities. Part of his autism is that it takes 2 and sometimes 3 times as long to get the work out of his head and onto paper. With all the reading, papers, daily assignments, long-term assignments, labs, definitions and special projects 5 AP classes have, he is simply swamped. He literally cannot get everything done everyday. If he gets buried too deep in zeroes, he gets to the point of “why bother”. He understands and can do the work, but not in the compressed time frame expected. If there were a way to demonstrate comprehension of the material without it always being written out, he’d shine like the brightest star! Sometimes the teachers assignments are extremely repetitive (ie annotating 17 pages of Sylvia Plath poems – wouldn’t annotating 5 pages do the trick?) In math, if he did the five hardest problems first and got them all right, wouldn’t that demonstrate mastery rather than slogging through 30 similar problems?
I understand that completing homework and submitting it on time is a life-skill, but there has to be some kind of reasonableness to it. If you had 5 bosses and each gave you an important assignment to complete by the next day, would that be a reasonable expectation?? I suspect the most conscientious worker would earn a few zeroes, no matter how hard they tried not to do so.
@Karen,
I have some IB students in my neighborhood who I know quite well. Most of them sleep four hours a night. They constantly triage and thus get a zero or two once in a while. Heck, they even take days off to finish big projects simply because the workload is sometimes unreasonable. What good would a zero do them?
This debate is absolutely crazy. Why is there even a debate about not giving a zero if an assignment isn’t done? I am not talking about a late assignment, that is another story. Karen, why aren’t your son’s teachers more understanding and accommodating with due dates? If he turns the work in, he shouldn’t be getting zeros, even if it’s late. But if a student doesn’t turn in an assignment, how can you give them a 60%…the completed 0% of the work!!! If they did the work but was only correct 80% of the time, what grade do they get? How do you justify this to the student who worked as hard as he could and got a 75% while another did nothing and was only a few points behind? I am shocked that this would even be a debate. What are we teaching kids? What do you think our society will look like in 20 years when this generation of students becomes adults? Giving them grades they don’t deserves teaches them that they don’t have to work hard, but that someone will hand them what they need. That is ridiculous. I think this is why our country is headed downhill. We need to teach kids that if you don’t do the work, you don’t get the grade, because when they get to college they won’t get a 60% for missing assignments, and when they get a job they wont get paid for not doing their job. This is insanity.
Coming here from the SBG Gala, so I have SBG on the brain right now.
If your gradebook is a list of learning standards that the students are meant to understand, then “zero” or “not a zero” becomes a very different question. As long as you have some (hard) evidence that the student has made progress in learning a concept, that entry in your gradebook should not be a zero.
On the other hand, even with SBG, if students are not taking enough responsibility to show up and complete assessments, leaving you with no hard evidence of their learning, then I think it’s perfectly reasonable to leave that standard at a zero. In an ideal world there are many opportunities to gather data on how a student is learning, making this a rare problem. If this breaks down, or if a student manages to miss multiple quizzes (or leaves them entirely blank), then, okay, here’s a zero.
Now, back to the non-SBG context: if your gradebook is a list of individual assessments, ie. quizzes, tests, and assignments, then I think the “zero or 50%?” question boils down to questions like:
What do those numbers represent?
What is the minimum that I want my students capable of to pass this course?
Are my assessments weighted in such a way as to make the summative grade match up to my expectations for a passing student?
The “zero or no zero” debate really doesn’t make sense outside of the larger context of how you organize your assessments and your overall marking scheme. If assignments are worth a tiny slice of the overall grade, then a zero is not a make-or-break punishment. On the other hand, if you’re running a project-based course where assignments are 75% of the grade, then a zero on one missed assignment can be a very big deal. My advice in that situation would be, accept late assignments, consider omitting in unusual circumstances.
However, all of this is exactly one of the reasons why SBG is appealing. If your gradebook is organized by concepts that a student should learn, rather than individual assessments, then a student who has demonstrated their learning despite missing a particular assignment or whatnot can get a grade that still represents the state of their actual learning without having to pull weird “oh let’s just give them 50%” tricks that leave people wondering what the heck you’re doing.
In my opinion, there is a difference in a student not turning in an assignment at all, or turning it in blank, rather than starting it or trying it but not completing it, or doing it in its entirety but entirely wrong. I was unclear which situation the original post was referring to.
If a student has tried but not completed the work, or has done the whole thing but incorrecty, I will not give a 0.
If a student does not turn in an assignment, or fails to do the work, I ask them why. Most students are very honest with a little prodding. If I suspect the student didn’t have a clue how to do the work or that there might be some other issues affecting schoolwork (family life, relationship trouble, etc), I’ll reiterate that I can help them before/after school/during lunch, whatever. I typically give them the assignment back and let them try again. If it’s a blank paper, I often write little notes like, “Please come talk to me about this assignment” or something along those lines.
Now if I’ve tried all this, if I’ve tried to call home, if I’ve tried to talk to their coach/mentor/principal/etc and the student still never turns in the work, yes, I am going to give a 0. This is something I also explain to them when giving them another chance to do an assignment.
Not all students are equal, and fair isn’t always equal, and not all 0’s are equal (given for the same reasons). Zeros aren’t always “bad”, and they don’t always mean the teacher is being lazy or is trying to punish the student. As always, teachers have to really KNOW their students and be willing to really work with the students to determine if the grades given (whether a 100, a 50, or a 0) are “fair”. Sometimes a 0 really is earned.
After reading through some more of the comments, I wanted to add a little bit to my previous thoughts. Some people mentioned how too many 0’s give the student no incentive to do any work, because they know with that many 0’s, they can’t pass or make the grade they want regardless.
This is definitely a good point. I’ve come across many students that absolutely do come to a point where they feel like they are simply going to fail no matter what, so why try. These often become behavior problems, too, which we definitely don’t want!
When I’ve had situations like this in the past, I try to be as flexible as possible with the student and make compromises. Let’s say I have two assignments in my gradebook that gauge mastery of the same standard. I’ll pick one at my discretion and tell them to complete that one, and I’ll get rid of that other 0 so that it doesn’t count against them.
Or let’s say a student is doing poorly in all his classes and has gotten so down on himself that he is swamped in make-up work, etc. After verifying that this is indeed the case, I’ll work with the student on picking SOME of the assignments to make up, maybe go over some of them with the student orally and assess accordingly, or whatever. Flexibility , and as I said previously, KNOWING your students, is key in teaching.
@h.b.,
You raise pertinent points–thank you for being so thorough! Knowing your students and making small compromises are key qualities for the pedagogue. I often make the same concessions with students depending on the student and the situation and when grades are due.
The important issue is that when we feel that we should be giving students zeros is the exact time we have to talk with them, their parents, their other teachers, and counselors. Something can be worked out wherein they can make up the work instead of receiving a zero.
I’ve read many and skimmed a few comments. Several contributors raise great points. My wife and I (mostly, honestly, my wife, due to my work schedule) are home-schooling our youngest boys this year for the first time. This comes after having considered several pedagogical angles, including their academic environment last year when they were in kindergarten and first grade. We have yet to consider if, nor therefore how, to grade the boys, but we have thought of the practice itself; and since our youngest daughter (the oldest child living with us) attends a public middle school this year, we have our feet in both environments.
Thus far, we have (a) been very excited considering all the ways we can introduce and dive into various topics cross-disciplinarily, and whole vistas of educational—better yet, curiosity-inducing—opportunites have opened up; and (b) remarked at the several ways by which our daughter’s student handbook has described she can earn a detention or other more extreme punishment. This latter philosophy seems to undergird a grading scheme which presents a vast hole in the 100-point scheme in which a student can fall to “failure.” When any score of 60% or lower (this varies of course) constitutes “failure,” we seem to place greater weight on not failing than on learning, let alone empowering curiosity.
I’m sure these points are old hat, and fall into many of these conversations, and I see that I’m a bit late to the conversation anyway. However, I can’t help but empathize: I’m a student myself, and feel an increasingly pointed distraction from pursuit of grades at the cost of enlightenment. The don’t need to be mutually exclusive, of course, but managing a fruitful metering of progress begins with understanding a useful purpose for it: providing a lattice on which the student can build a perspective of her strengths and weaknesses in an objective fashion. Yes, we can whip a horse to run more quickly, but is that what we should be aiming for?
Cheers,
Daniel
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